Severely truncated weekend this time. I stayed in town Friday for a vet appointment in the late morning, then Daisycat and I went to a Christmas event at a local park. I thought it was nice--lights on all the trees, a western swing band in one location and a gypsy flamenco band in another, plus art, crafts, hot cider, coffee and Christmas cookies. Apparently it was better last year and Daisycat was disappointed.

Saturday morning at the farm was another butchering day--four more hens prepared for the stew pot. We have seven more birds to butcher, but the remainder are slated for early January some time.

Saturday late morning and afternoon, I bluestaked the existing utilities on site in preparation for the local phone company to install a DSL line. Yes! The Desert Cat Farm is coming into civilization finally. I've been frustrated enough by the satellite service we've been limping along with. Now that the local phone company offers DSL, well, it's a no-brainer to switch.

"Here's where to dig in order to hit some dangerous utilities..."


I also brushed out and raked clear the alignment that I want them to take. The route takes them *around* all of the existing utilities, hoping this prevents any problems.


A cow-worker gave me several bags of pine needles and oak leaves. He's very liberal, and has apparently become convinced that I might, maybe, possibly, be an OK conservative, since I like to recycle coffee grounds for my garden. He didn't want to landfill the rakings, so offered them to me. Sure, you betcha! I can use them in my tinfoil-hat libertarian survival garden. LOL!

Here they are piled until I can fit them into the compost bins.


The corn cobs were dry enough, so I got a start on shelling the corn into a bucket.


I had to give up after a while, because my hands were getting chafed and beaten up by the cobs.  When this shallow gash appeared on my thumb, I called it quits.  I need to build a wooden box to mount my antique corn sheller, in order to finish the job properly.


Sunday morning I did some maintenance on Mitzi, returning her to automatic choke operation, as the problem I had been experiencing turned out to not be so much related to the gas delivery system as to the ignition timing.  It is just easier to let the automatic choke do its thing, versus operating a finicky manual choke.

Sunday afternoon I was back at painting and cutting the plywood panels for my cabinet project.  I have all the panels primed and rough-cut.  Perhaps next weekend I will start fine cutting to size and assembling the first one.


Elsewhere, the vetch is looking mighty juicy in places.  This extended mild weather is letting it put some serious growth on that normally waits until May to happen.  Frost may trim back some of this growth, but these vetches are winter hardy to 10 degrees fahrenheit.

This patch will become my corn patch next spring.